And the saga continues...I'm not sure who exactly they intend to bring before a parliamentary committee, but I suppose it wasted some time in the House playing with that...

Hacker group Anonymous threatened Vic Toews, says Commons Speaker

OTTAWA—House of Commons Speaker Andrew Scheer has ruled Public Safety Minister Vic Toews’ parliamentary privileges were breached by videos posted online by the group Anonymous, clearing the way for the hackers to be hauled before MPs.

“These videos contained various allegations about the minister’s private life, and made specific and disturbing threats,” Scheer said.

“The minister has stated that he accepts that coping with vigorous debate and sometimes overheated rhetoric are part of the job of a politician, but argued that these online attacks directed to both him and his family had crossed the line into threatening behaviour that was unacceptable.

“He contended that the threatened actions contained in these videos constituted a deliberate attempt to intimidate him with respect to proceedings in Parliament.”

Videos posted on YouTube show a headless man in a black suit under a red maple leaf and laurels as a computer-generated voice demands Toews’ resignation and calls for a controversial online-surveillance bill to be scrapped.

“I have carefully reviewed the online videos in which the language used does indeed constitute a direct threat to the minister in particular, as well as all other members,” Scheer said. “These threats demonstrate a flagrant disregard of our privileges of this House.

“As your Speaker, and the guardian of those privileges, I have concluded that this aspect — the videos posted on the Internet by Anonymous — therefore constitutes a prima facie question of privilege and I invite the minister to move his motion.”

The Commons can now debate whether to order the hackers to appear before a committee.

It’s unclear how Parliament would find the people behind the video. As its name suggests, the group does not publicize its membership.

That’s not to say they can’t be found. Twenty-five suspected members of the group were recently arrested in sweeps across Europe and South America as part of an Interpol investigation into co-ordinated cyberattacks in Colombia and Chile.

After introducing the surveillance legislation last month, the public safety minister came under attack from the Twitter account Vikileaks, which published details of Toews’ divorce and spending.

A Liberal staffer was later revealed to be behind the Vikileaks account.

Scheer dismissed two other claims of privilege made by Toews over the Vikileaks issue.

Ah look Vic "the uncontrollable prick" Toews is upset, that after another Conservative Minister wildly accused the NDP of mud slinging at Toews, they went and checked the public records to make sure they understood what they were being accused of...

Public Safety Minister Vic Toews is accusing an NDP worker of being sent to dig up dirt on his divorce proceedings.

Toews took to Twitter to allege a campaign organizer for NDP leadership hopeful Paul Dewar was sent to get the divorce papers at the behest of Manitoba Premier Greg Selinger.

Dewar's camp confirmed their Manitoba organizer, Thomas Linner, went to the courthouse but only after the VikiLeaks web-site went live.

"After [Foreign Affairs Minister] John Baird accused the NDP of exposing personal information, Thomas Linner was asked by the NDP to check the public records so that they knew what they were being accused of," said Dewar spokesman Joe Cressy.

Martin also took to Twitter to refute the allegations. "The MB NDP staffer went to look at Vic's divorce file on Feb 17, well after [VikiLeaks] started and only after Baird blamed the NDP," Martin tweeted.

"I made this clear to Vic Toews yesterday. He is deliberately misrepresenting the facts."

...and surprise, surprise the Conservatives are again misrepresenting the facts...sort of like when Vic said that C-30 wouldn't pretty much remove the need for police to have to "waste" time getting a warrant to put your entire life under surveillance. Hmmm, who to believe?

E7 (no login)

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March 13 2012, 10:25 PM

Welcome to the new West.. where politicians can be as twisted as they please, and it's the whistle blowers who are painted to be the bad guy...

I am not sure that is such a new development Element. I would say that the most tragic development in recent memory is how journalism is now primarily about selling advertising space and not about informing citizens about what is going on.

Update on the story, surprisingly Vic Toews seems to be asking Parliament to continue to waste time and money chasing Anonymous, newsflash for you Vic, the experts have said there really isn't anything that can be done...

Toews urges pursuit of Anonymous attackers

STEPHANIE LEVITZ March 27, 2012 3:41 p.m.

OTTAWA - Public Safety Minister Vic Toews acknowledges Parliament's hands may be tied when it comes to dealing with online videos attacking him.

But he urged MPs not to give up their pursuit of the issue, saying threats against them in the age of the Internet need to be examined.

Toews appeared before a House of Commons committee Tuesday examining whether his privilege as an MP was breached when online videos disclosed details of his personal life and called for his resignation.

The videos followed the introduction of an online surveillance bill that critics say gives authorities too much power to snoop into people's online lives.

MPs are struggling with what exactly they should study, especially since they're not sure they can track down the source of the videos, attributed to the activist group Anonymous.

At an earlier meeting, the clerk of the Commons suggested to MPs that attempting to hunt down the group may be a waste of time, given the fact it operates anonymously.

But Toews says they shouldn't give up.

"I would hate to think that this committee would simply say this task seems so intimidating and so overwhelming that I don't think there is anything we can do, let's just call it a day," he said.

"Let's hear from the experts. ... At the end of the day, if all of the experts say nothing can be done, perhaps then we have our answer."

Toews said that as a public figure, he expects his personal and political life to be under a microscope.

But he says the videos raise the broader question of protecting MPs from threats in the age of the Internet.

"The whole relationship of the responsibility of a member, the duties of a member and the utilization of the Internet in this type of fashion, I don't think has ever been explored or discussed," Toews said.

"I'm not in a position to be able to say this is what you should or should not do but very generally: is there any way that MPs can be protected from these type of threats and are there any steps that the House of Commons can take to better protect its members?"

But New Democrat MP Chris Charlton noted that the videos themselves weren't a breach of security, as they were posted the public site YouTube.

"This wasn't a hacking job, there was no breach of computer security here on the Hill," she said.

"And so for the kinds of issues that I think we're looking at here, remedies probably lie within the Criminal Code, perhaps with laws with respect to defamation."

As of Tuesday afternoon, the videos remained on YouTube and appear not to have been flagged as inappropriate, which would trigger the site to review them and possibly remove them if they violated any guidelines.

A spokesman for Toews said that because the issue has been referred to the RCMP, it wouldn't be appropriate for him or his staff to contact YouTube.

An expert in parliamentary affairs who also testified Tuesday told MPs they needed to take the threats in context.

Queen's University Prof. Ned Franks reminded MPs that the videos were posted after Toews rose in the Commons to suggest that people who weren't in support of the new bill were on the side of child pornographers.

"The tone at the top as shown in the words and behaviours of MPs affects public respect for and trust in their Parliament and parliamentarians," Franks told the committee.

"And in my view, I regret to say, the tone of the top has not been entirely high in this issue.

When pressed later as to whether he was suggesting the videos were justified, Franks demurred, saying only that he was there to talk about how to handle finding a breach of privilege.

He said there's a fine line between something being offensive and actually causing harm, and it's the latter that's required in a case of privilege.

....hmmm wonder if Vic got up in the House on Monday and demanded that the culprits that attacked the very core of democratic principle and process at the NDP convention on Saturday and those who who attempted to mislead non-CPC members during the last election be immediately found and brought to justice? Why do I believe the answer is he did not...I am guess I am getting cynical in my old age.

This message has been edited by cwc.mgmt on Mar 28, 2012 1:57 PM

E7 (no login)

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March 28 2012, 7:53 PM

[Toews urges pursuit of Anonymous attackers]

-Since when is whistle blowing on a corrupt politician an attack? There should be MORE whistle blowers.. it should be encouraged, especially when it relates to those in office.

Actually the funny part is that it seems that he was having an affair (on both his wife AND his first mistress) with a women he then appointed to the bench (made a judge)...like if that isn't illegal, it really should be.

‘We know all about you, Minister Toews’

MONTREAL - RCMP Staff Sgt. Marc Moreau could not confirm whether the RCMP is investigating Anonymous for threatening Vic Toews in a video posted on YouTube in February.

As in many other videos by the group, this one featured a headless man in a black suit and a computerized voice-over that demanded the public safety minister’s resignation and that the controversial online surveillance legislation Bill C-30 be scrapped.

Given Anonymous’s targeting of child pornographers themselves, the group was piqued by Toews’s assertions that if you are against C-30, you are “with the child pornographers.”

In October, Anonymous carried out Operation Darknet, through which it captured and destroyed Lolita City, the largest collection of child-pornography images on the Internet, as well as other sites distributing child pornography. Then on Nov. 5 – Guy Fawkes Day – they disclosed the personal details of pedophiles using the websites.

In the video posted in February, and in the wake of the Vikileaks scandal, in which a Liberal staffer was found to have published details from Toews’s divorce papers, Anonymous issued this barely veiled warning: “We know all about you, Minister Toews. We told you to expect us.”

On Tuesday, Toews reiterated his belief before a parliamentary committee that the threat by Anonymous was serious and must be investigated as a threat to democracy for the sake of all MPs. But he did not offer any insight into how this could be done. The video did not involve any hacking, nor were parliamentary Internet or BlackBerry servers used to produce or disseminate it.

Among other Anonymous actions in Canada, in November the group threatened to have the city of Toronto “removed from the Internet” if it went ahead with plans to evict the Occupy Toronto camp. Then in February, hacktivists made public the names of 74 Canadians, with their street addresses, email addresses and passwords taken from the white-supremacist website Blood and Honour and from a website that sells Nazi and military paraphernalia.

OTTAWA - The Mounties say they have had some success tracking cyber criminals, but shed no light Tuesday on the odds of catching the suspects behind YouTube threats against Public Safety Minister Vic Toews.

While Toews rested at a local hospital with the flu, according to his office, spokespeople for the country's top cyber geeks did their best not to share details of the investigation.

The ultra-secretive eavesdropping arm of Canada's spy service - the Communications Security Establishment (CSE) - said they weren't, but noted the Internet has become "a vast, complex infrastructure."

The public safety department said it wasn't, but did remind Canadians to update their firewalls and not open attachments from people they don't know.

So it was left to the RCMP to reluctantly acknowledge, in between melodies of "I'm not at liberty to discuss," that its technological arm was probing a video posted on the faceless Internet by the hacker group Anonymous.

The video threatened to release personal information about Toews if he didn't resign and ditch legislation that would give law enforcement - including those appearing as witnesses at the House and procedural affairs committee -- warrantless powers to electronically snoop on Canadians.

James Malizia, an assistant RCMP commissioner -- speaking hypothetically - said charges could include extortion, uttering threats, intimidation, mischief to data, unauthorized use of a computer and trafficking in passwords.

Any charge is contingent on finding the culprits - something Conservative MP Laurie Hawn said was likely hopeless even though police in other countries have arrested members of the loosely formed hacker group.

Malizia did not provide examples of RCMP investigations that have led to charges and convictions, but was not about to throw in the towel at a committee hearing that ended a half hour early because MPs invited the wrong witnesses, ran out of questions and appear to have limited knowledge about the subject matter before them and how to catch the offenders.

"I can say there have been successful investigations in the past," he said.